In the prior art, display terminals have been used as receiving terminals. However, I am aware of no prior art system which had receiving display terminal apparatus permitting the operator to view and work with a history of alphanumeric data beyond the received data actually displayed on the screen. One group of prior art display terminals filled the display screen with the data which was communicated giving the operator an opportunity to view the incoming data. However, as the alphanumeric representations of the data displayed on the screen reached the sequential end of the screen, the operator had the choice of either discarding the associated data representative of the alphanumeric characters leaving the screen or deciding to store such data in a bulk storage means. In both cases, since the alphanumeric representations of the data had left the screen, the operator had no capability of redisplaying this data while the data transmission from the transmitting terminal to the receiving terminal was still going on. If the data was discarded, then the alphanumeric representations could never be redisplayed. On the other hand, if the data was stored in bulk storage means such as diskette memories, such stored data could not be made reavailable to the display terminal until the communication was complete. Thus, the prior art gave the operator no opportunity to examine the alphanumeric history of the received data on a real time basis while transmission was being carried on.